Twitter buys London startup Magic Pony for close to $150m

Twitter has acquired London artificial intelligence startup Magic Pony for around $150m, according to sources close to the company. The startup, founded by graduates of Imperial College London uses machine learning to create high-quality videos from grainy footage, and will likely be integrated into Twitter’s live and video services such as Periscope and Vine. The acquisition builds on other investments made by Twitter in machine learning, including those of Madbits in July 2014 and Whetlab in June 2015. “Machine learning is increasingly at the core of everything we build at Twitter,” said chief executive Jack Dorsey. “Magic Pony’s technology – based on…algorithms that can understand the features of imagery – will be used to enhance our strength in live and video.” We’ve acquired Magic Pony Technology to enhance our machine learning efforts and strength in video: https://t.co/Ds03vtC1dH— Twitter…